Bookmap

Bookmarket is yet another ‘Order Flow’ trading indicator and trading software being marketed by individuals with absolutely zero record of trading success. Although the software is well designed, stable, and does what it is supposed to do, which is display volume onto a graphical display. However, the information that is presented to the end user is of very little value. The “trading setups” are a mish-mash of nebulous and highly ambiguous information. Nothing is testable or provable. Everything is described in Jedi Yoda terms such as, “one must feel the flow of the markets, one must find the market rythmes, one must let the indicators permeate the inner spirit.”

Pros:Stable software that does exactly what it is supposed to do: display trading volume.

Cons:The information from the graphical display is a nearly useless, set of new age mumbo-jumbo, "market feelings", and hard to prove or disprove trading concepts. A playground for the wandering imagination.

Thanks for reading today’s review of Bookmap

What is Bookmap? Bookmap is a volume visualization trading indicator and stand-alone trading platform. The website can be found at Bookmap.com, as well as Veloxpro.com.

The software is delivered in various subscription models that range from a minimum of $147 billed quarterly for a ‘Basic’ version, to $297 billed quarterly for the ‘Advanced’ version. The software is delivered to the masses through various retail trading platforms and trading brokerages.

A review of Archive.org reveals that the company began an aggressive marketing push in 2013. This period of time also coincides with various other ‘indicator hustlers’ also offering very similar software. It appears that 2013 was the breakout year for this latest and greatest indicator fad spreading throughout the retail trading community.

Bookmap maintains a healthy and well promoted YouTube page at the following address. The YouTube page serves as the primary marketing and demonstration hub for the software. In total, there are 132 demonstration videos.

During the month of October 2016, TradingSchools.Org spent nearly 40 hours observing the software perform over a variety of markets, including the emini SP500 futures, Crude Oil futures, and 30 year US Treasury Bonds futures. All three of these products are highly popular with the retail trading community, and we felt that these tradable products would be of most interest to readers.

What exactly is Bookmap?

Essentially, Bookmap is a visual representation of the entire trading DOM, spread over a specific time period. Typically, when traders are viewing a trading chart, they are visualizing price, time and measurable movement. However, Bookmap takes additional data fields, that have been freely available since the advent of electronic trading, and includes this data into a sort of ‘electronic burrito’. Where a whole lot of additional ingredients are crammed inside of the tortilla.

Are more ingredients inside of a burrito better? Do they make the burrito more tasty? Does this create a more nutritious trading environment? Is it beneficial to include a waffle and pickles inside of our carne asada burrito? Is more better. These were questions that we set out to answer.

In the past, TradingSchools.Org has reviewed several other trading educators also offering nearly identical trading indicators. None of those reviews have been particularly friendly. The main reason for these poor reviews is because TradingSchools.Org has yet to find a trading educator that has been able to proof the concept of order flow indicators. In short, we are looking for profits, and thus far we can find no person’s that can verify actual trading profits.

Are trading profits the only way to verify these types of indicators?

Obviously, the best way to proof a concept, like an airplane, is to watch the airplane take flight. Unfortunately, we have yet to find a pilot that has been able to achieve liftoff using order flow trading indicators. Does this mean that we should simply walk away, and toss the idea aside? Absolutely not. In fact, most of today’s modern trading platforms come with the ability to backtest trading ideas.

Whenever a new building is designed, in today’s modern world, the building is analyzed through a series of simulators that present natural weather challenges to the building. Or when Boeing builds a new plane, before the plane is even contemplated being built, it is sent through a series of simulators. Or a new drug is developed, the biotech company will run the molecular profile through a series of molecular ‘bombardment’ profiles to capture any potential side effects. This is how science works.

Scientists start with the Null Hypothesis, the theory that something does not exist unless it can be proven statistically within a population of data. This is how TradingSchools.Org attempts to tackle the challenge of evaluating trading educators, trading systems, and trading indicators. We start with the assumption that everything is false unless proven otherwise.

Reaching out to Bookmap developers

The first step in our discovery process was to reach out to the Velox Pro Bookmap developers and plainly ask if anyone at the company has been able to convert the usage of the software into actual profits. Unfortunately, nobody at Bookmap is willing to step forward with any sort of actual trading results in which to base the review.

Instead, the developers recommended that we watch the YouTube videos. And that watching these YouTube videos repeatedly, then the ideas and concepts would begin to emerge. At some point, this information would be convertible into real time trading profits. Our response was, would you eat a restaurant where the chef refused to eat his own food?

In spite of this, we held out great hope that some useful information could be gleaned from watching real markets unfold and by studiously watching and rewatching the various YouTube videos.

After several weeks of enthusiastically observing the software perform in real time market environments, we came to the conclusion that everything witnessed was so highly subjective that every opinion on market direction was muddled with confirmation bias.

The problem with confirmation bias

What exactly is confirmation bias and illusory correlation, and how does it apply to trading? Have you ever looked at a price chart, and overlayed the price chart with a moving average? Isn’t it amazing how sometimes the price will bounce off of the moving average? It is incredibly seductive to believe that a market is going to ‘bounce’ at a moving average. However, when backtested upon larger data sets, the ‘bounce’ that the moving average provided simply disappears. It was an illusion. Your mind was seeking a pattern, and the human mind is wonderful at seeking and discovering patterns with no statistical validity. “Last night was a half moon, and today a bird pooped on my windshield, therefore the half moon foretold the bird poop bombardment.”

This is the faulty logical foundation in which the Bookmap order flow indicators are built upon. The ideas presented by the developers are a hodge podge of YouTube videos that claim that “Iceberg Orders, Black Box Algos, Volume Absorption, Volume Imbalance, Aggressive Volume, Passive Volume, Institutional Volume, etc. are the reason why the price moved higher, or reversed, or bounced, or went lower. There is always an avenue in which to let the mind wander in the land of fantasies and self entertianment.

Test, Test, Test

In the trading business, it is best to believe nobody. And it is always a great idea to test theories and ideas, before risking your trading account. With Bookmap we were more than willing to code up their trading ideas and test them on data. Unfortunately, even the guys atBookmap have no idea exactly what ideas could be defined and tested. Instead, they prefer to offer the software “as a visual tool.”

Another problem that we find with volume visualization tools, like Bookmap, is that the order book is 99% useless noise. Why? At any moment, there are massive amounts of orders entering the market, where the players involved have no intention of executing those orders. These massive unfulfilled order flows are meant to create an illusion that “the big players, the hedge funds, George Soros, the Illuminati, Barack Obama” are doing the following nefarious activities like, “Quote stuffing, quote smoking, quote spoofing, quote dangling, or quote pack-hunting . Order flow indicator hustlers will attempt to do what they always do, convince you something is happening and you can only see these special events with their proprietary tools.

And so, don’t be fooled! Ask for a definition of their idea, and then program and test it. The following 30-second clip really made me laugh, and it personifies the problem with order flow indicators, how do you define and test such nebulous concepts?

My own opinion

Obviously, I am not a big fan of “Order Flow.” But this belief is not based upon opinion or my natural cynicism. This is based upon evidence, and testing these ideas on actual data. Just like the aeronautical engineer tests the plane, or the biotech engineer tests the chemical compound, or the banker tests the client with pay stubs that verify income…before they make the loan.

The bottom line is that I cannot find any statistical evidence that this stuff actually works. And I am not willing to place even a single bet unless I know that the dice are loaded in my favor.

The opinion of others…

TradingSchools.Org received a lot of email from purchasers of these types of trading products. Some of the opinions are expressed as hilarious analogies. One reader sent me the following note:

After using the software for 2 months, I began to realize why there is a 3 month minimum.

The indicators remind me of christmas tree lights. For a few weeks, it was pretty to look at. Dazzling actually. But what it all means? I have no idea.

And probably the best reply came from a user that described the software akin to Tasseography. Of course, I had no idea what Tasseography meant, and so I googled it. It is the art of interpreting the patterns within coffee grounds, tea leaves, or wine sediments. A parlor trick orchestrated by medieval European fortune tellers. A practice still very much in vogue.

Wrapping things up

Thanks for reading today’s article. I apologize if I offended some folks. Many readers love these types of trading tools. In my opinion, its just a fad that will eventually be yet another free product that comes standard on all trading platforms, like other once highly regarded and outrageously expensive technical indicators (stochastics, MACD, Fibonacci).

Have been using for 6 months to trade the bund and think it’s excellent. It all depends on how you trade. If you’re trading at extremes (like you should) then it is excellent to see large OTG traders flash in and start to turn price. It is less use in the chop between these extremes but is still usable, you just might not get those big guys coming in though. Tried it on eurostoxx and it is ok, but the eurostoxx is quite a ‘thick’ market. Dax is, well, the Dax, a bucking bronco which is volatile and thin. Works… Read more »

I use BM and have done for the last maybe 18 months, I execute through it but dont have any of the other add ons. I dont use any of the indicators that they have now added, I just dont see the point in them. I have to admit, I have spent hours watching and rewatching their youtube pages as well as the webinars done by FT71 on bookmap. I dont find any of these useful. Furthermore, I think you can hear the confusion in their voice as they stumble over the explanation of why you should get long/short, it’s… Read more »

They stumble over their explanations because they’ve stopped trading live for years and all they do is shamshow now. They only get profits from monthly churn fees or sales or fees tied to a brokerage or affiliates. Jigsaw has continued to raise their prices under the guise of “special deals” and “new discounts. FT71 is tied to some brokerage always promoting a version of Investor RT, a monthly churn fee required platform.

Yes, these guys at stage5 (which is where FT71 is), has been trying to push bookmap for a long time to their brokerage customers – its just terrible business practice for this brokerage trying to sell useless software to their clients.

Hi Emmett, I’m Tsachi Galanos, CEO of Veloxpro, the company behind Bookmap. First off, I wanted to thank you for the time end effort you invested in covering Bookmap. Reading your review, I thought it would be good to add our perspective and some background information so you and you readers can have a better context when reviewing Bookmap. Short background on Veloxpro and the idea behind Bookmap. Prior to developing Bookmap, our team dealt with High Frequency Trading. We initially developed Bookmap in order to visualize the orders we were sending into the market as part of our HFT… Read more »

Thanks for commenting! Its great when a vendor has the courage to talk about their product.

You know what would be amazing? If we can build a few strategies into the platform that have some sort of statistical validity. This way, the user has not only a robust piece of execution software, but also a bit of edge built onto the platform. Just a suggestion. Would love to write about it.

he just tells you ‘ Bookmap is a trading platform’ and then you ask him for statistical validity….wtf. are you asking Trade Station NT Sierra or other platforms to verify that you can make money using them to verify they are legitimate? it just a different representation of the DOM, nothing more. I really like your reviews and your service to the community is fantastic but I think this was a bit closed minded

If someone like Stage 5’s FT71 Morad Askar could show in realtime he is profitable using Bookmap while trading live that would be great too. Morad Askar implies he has some sort of subjective/intuitive statistical edge using these tools but shows no evidence.

Well, Bookmap is no indicator to me. Bookmap, same as the Jigsaw tools or other tools (!) are just fancy DOM T&S combos. And I use Bookmap just instead of a regular DOM, because I like it better. Bookmap has indicator ADD-ONS, but there’s only one of them that might be useful in super thick and slow markets like EudoDollar or the 10 year Bond. It is correct that the guys at Velox have no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to trading, but that is also true with a lot of trading software developers. Because they are… Read more »

Thanks for the comment. I have certainly also been critical of Market Delta and OFA. You are correct, I have never written a review regarding Jigsaw. I don’t believe that the review of Bookmap was very critical. I just stated the facts, the people that offer the software have no trading experience. Nor have I been able to find anyone that uses the software successfully. Surely there must be someone? In my opinion, and this is just my opinion…DOM visualization tools like Bookmap etc will eventually become standard menu items. Given away for free. Just like MACD, Stochastics, Exponential Moving… Read more »

Emmett, I’m a big fan of bookmap and really want it to succeed because I want it to continue!! If I post some videos on YouTube would you be interested in seeing them? As I have just said in my review, it works best at market extremes. Also, it works best if you set it for larger orders only, but constantly shift in real time between seeing larger/smaller orders flash in at these areas. Confirms reversal points very well, but it is important to note that it is a secondary tool when it comes to picking levels etc.

Post some videos???????? WTF is that going to do. Anyone can talk about trading. But taking a live trade with stops and profit targets is another story. Either the Bookmap people are you should show Emmett live Brokerage statements showing how you are profitable trading using Bookmap, anything else is nonsense. And BTW that is not rough, but the honest facts.

“Nor have I been able to find anyone that uses the software successfully. ” Emmett, once again…Jason Love does this on a daily basis. Didn’t you sit in on Jason’s trading room during your review of the Oil Trading Group?

I think Emmett went a little to far rating this software. Its just software giving information that everyone can have in a different way. Its not a signal service, or indicator, buy now system, its just a tool. I guess all charting software will be rated the same then,cqg,ninja,tradestation,etc,, there are successful people all using these products

Valid comment. In my opinion, its important to keep the developers innovating and validating. Surely the developer of Bookmap is going to read this review and think, “wow this TradingSchools.org and their review is unfair and that guy is a real asshole.” Hopefully, he is even more determined to produce a better product. And to prove that his software works. In my opinion, Order Flow is perhaps an early stage invention. With lots of potential. Just like today’s modern helicopters and planes, at some point in history, they were considered ridiculous. For the time being, I prefer to take a… Read more »

Emmett, I’m a little confused by your Bookmap review, but only because you’ve already given your blessing (seal of approval) to Jason Love over at the Oil Trading Group. As one of Jason’s clients, I’ve been in Jason’s trading room and seen him have profitable Crude Oil trading days using only the following two tools: the DOM and Bookmap. While I can understand and appreciate your desire to have Bookmap broken down into quantifiable and back tested trading results, there seems to be a heavy contradiction in your review based on the quantifiable trading results of someone who successfully uses… Read more »

Creators obviously have no clue what to do with their product, recently I received video showing how it detects algo activity, you could see lots of green dots suggesting algos are buying. What should I do with this information, buy as well hoping algos know what they are doing?? But actually FT71 explains very well what to do with bookmap, you suppose to look at it only at the areas of your interest and wait for the certain patterns to occur. The same with other order flow tools, wait for buyers or sellers to jump on board and again it’s… Read more »

Hi David, I assume you are mentioning the video #3 from the new Bookmap Intro series, which appears now on the website. Yes, it’s reasonable to join such trading activity when it starts, and for as long as it keeps going on. It doesn’t matter whether this “algos know what they are doing”, i.e. whether it’s profitable. It doesn’t matter what indicators this algo is using (whether it’s a snake oil or an insider information). What matters is how it affects the price. And if this algo is buying, then it will lift the price assuming that the rest of… Read more »

I agree, this happens too. In this case the assumption that the rest of market is unbiased is wrong, and there are two cases: 1) That algo is losing. That’s easy – we would just trade against it; 2) the mutual behavior of traders is not predictable at all on such micro scale. In this case no tools could be useful, definitely not lagging aggregating indicators on larger scale. This is because the ‘events’ in macro scale are just an aggregation of events in micro scale. I admit that it would be difficult to exploit this specific example by click… Read more »

Emmett, Thanks for the good solid review of BookMap…As a former Investment Bank Market Maker, I can say that the proliferation of various order-flow displays is like “fake-news”. Do not believe it! The ONLY metric to rely on is actual “traded” volume, since it represents actual trader commitment. Everything else is fugazzi. All you need to see is the current “inside market” bid/ask quote. If you believe that X price is a good value and expect it to go higher…then BUY…If you expect it to go down…then SELL then manage your risk. Placing a trade because of some “magic wand”… Read more »

You have hit the nail on the head right there. I have said many times on here – I use Volume Profile and Footprint – yet some people still believe using volume is a fad because there are no repeatable pigeon hole type entries and exits. And yes I agree, there really are no magic repeatable setups that can be defined. Trading just isn’t that easy! However, similar situations do repeat themselves. For example: On Friday (09 December, 2016). ~ 27% of the volume was trading above the vPOC = bullish ~ the VWAP was rising = bullish ~ price… Read more »

Good summary Emmett, of why these new tools are so nebulous and are, or never can be tested for a statistical significance of profitability. I hope you get to “Sceeto” someday. It was a black box supposedly high tech algo trading tool for retailers with no proof yet they made it sound like it could recognize hft volume and trade accordingly. Yes the hustlers may someday pitch westworld like androids who can trade unemotionally for a retailer, lol, the culmination of the old neural network learning fad which used to be hustled through mt4 EAs. Thinkorswim already has a bunch… Read more »